“The basic thesis is that citizenship practices are broken and they can’t be fixed,” said Professor Peter J. Spiro in defining the premise of his book, Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization. On Wednesday, September 17th, Spiro, the Charles R. Weiner Professor of Law at Temple Law School, discussed how globalization degrades the concept of citizenship, and how the practice of birthright citizenship no longer makes sense the way it did when people were less inclined to move across national borders. The talk included an examination of the “disjuncture between citizenship and the actual community” as well as how the right to vote and the paying of taxes play into the citizenship discussion.

Peter J. Spiro is a graduate of Harvard University and earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. A former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter, Professor Spiro has written extensively on international, immigration, and constitutional law for a variety of law reviews as well as such publications as Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, and the leading international law blog, Opinio Juris.